Bye, Bye Blackbird
by nanniships
Summary: ADITH FEST offering that is something of a departure for me. A bit of an experiment. Sir Anthony gets closure, but I wouldn't call it a happy ending.


Bye, Bye, Blackbird

 _Blackbirds are the silent watchers and warders, bringers of mystery._

It hadn't been over when he fled. How could it have been?

He knew to his bones what he had done, what he had sacrificed, what he condemned her to. Walking away from that altar, through the shocked glares of the guests, as her voice lilted at his back in pain and confusion, he knew he had irrevocably committed himself to a life held in abeyance.

He had left her standing in a prison of white silk, knowing that it was a confinement she would eventually escape from. She had to, or the imprisonment he voluntarily committed himself to was for nothing.

He was not an innocent man, and made no pretensions to it. As he fled the church, he intentionally remembered the lives he had taken, the pain he had inflicted on others in the course of man's inhumanity to man. And he was convinced that he had inflicted no greater pain than he had that afternoon.

It was appropriate that it was overcast. The baleful glint of the half obscured sun on the gravestones lit the path he chose to take towards a life that consisted of watching, yet never engaging.

If he could have stayed in his home, his task would have been easier. But he knew that wasn't possible, that it was likely he'd never again live in the manor in which he'd grown up, where once he'd anticipated bringing home a young and lovely young woman to fill it with laughter and wit and possibly children.

He couldn't possibly stay, although he couldn't say for certain if the pain he was trying to avoid was hers or his. It would be as if he'd disappeared forever, gone to ground in shame for his actions.

But he had money. And if he couldn't be near her, he would find others who could. He left no word and dismissed his staff with great sadness, although most were disgusted with him and didn't regret leaving his employ. The few who did, who understood the brokenness he finally refused to inflict upon the person he loved, departed reluctantly. One refused-the one who had been with him and served him personally since before the war, during the war, and throughout his many wars with himself. Having no choice, he allowed the man to come with him.

And he watched, hovering from afar like a preternaturally keen sighted blackbird, receiving reports and following the trail of breadcrumbs left by his beloved as she slowly emerged from the cocoon of misunderstanding and expectations in which her well meaning family surrounded her. She mourned what she thought her life was going to be, then she picked up a pen in the face of discouragement and disparagement and began to find her life.

She might have given him his life back, but he couldn't take hers from her in exchange. Although each word that was a stone in the new edifice that she became felt like the gash of a razor, a yanking out of his flight feathers, he rejoiced as he wept.

He could have destroyed the man who hurt her, but he didn't. The seeds of destruction were sown before he had the opportunity. And he hovered and watched and read the reports of a visit to a Harley Street doctor, a trip abroad, a new life. She became frighteningly strong and fierce as her life was bound to the child that could have been theirs. He always knew she would be.

He was so tired. Reports continued to arrive, but sometimes he wouldn't read them for days. She mothered her child, navigated the dangerous shoals of her family, directed her magazine. She seemed like she thrived. And perhaps she did.

But he was far seeing-always had been. Making the best of things didn't mean thriving. And when the reports began to make mention of a man, a good man, he had to fight a sudden urge to swoop closer and land dangerously within her sight. Why...he wasn't sure. To make sure all went well, perhaps. Or to simply to selfishly sip again at the vibrancy of her life, of her happiness.

Never would she see him. Perhaps she had forgotten him. There was a light turned on, beckoning her home. Perhaps that was all that occupied her, as it should. As he wanted more than anything.

It was what he wanted. It was.

And when she followed that light, struggled through the remaining patches of darkness, found the one that waits for her, he finally allowed himself to drift to earth. He flew no more, canceled the faithful reporters who had been his eyes, and simply released her from his watching.

His eyes could finally close.


End file.
